Bosley_Constitution_Board_Game

=Summer of 1787= Jack Bosley - jbb33074@insightbb.com
 * Constitutional Convention **

 **Instructional Objective**
 * What will the learners learn from this game (or more likely, what learning objectives are being reinforced by this game)? If it's for school use, where does it fit into the curriculum? (You can find links to curricular frameworks** [|**here**] **).**

The overall learning objective for this game is to understand the major issues and compromises that were debated at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Specifically, students will examine the issues of representation, slavery, and executive power. Students will also be able to understand the major compromises adopted at the Convention. During the game, students will also be introduced to key players at the Convention. Facts about the Constitution, compromises, dilemmas, and key players will be introduced through questions during the game.


 * Learners & Context of Use**
 * Who is the game designed for? Describe them in terms of their age, grade level, affinity towards the subject matter, and anything special about them that the reader should know. Where would the game be used? If in a school, what accomodations would you need to make to do it in a typical classroom? Is it designed to be played more than once? What would happen prior to the game? What would happen after it?**

The game is designed for students in middle and high school. The Constitution and Convention are some of the most important topics students need to understand in their history or government classes. The Constitution is a major part of year end assessments in most states that test social studies or history and therefore teachers spend a good deal of time on the subject. In my experience, the subject matter is considered boring to most students so a new way to present the material is needed. The game would be played during school. The biggest accommodation needed for the game would be the use of a textbook or computer to find some answers during the game. Most students may not know the answers to the questions so allowing them the use of a textbook or computer to find answers will help game play. The game is designed to be played only once although it could be played again at the end of the year as review for testing. Prior to the game, the students have been taught about the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and other events that led to the Convention. Teachers should limit their teaching of the issues and compromises surrounding the Convention to make the game more interesting to students. After the game is played, teachers should use some type of graphic organizer to cover the issues and compromises to ensure all students received correct information during the game.

There are few other companies that are making a board game that involves the U.S. Constitution much less a game on the Constitutional Convention. One company that has made a Constitution board game is Pechnidi. The following description comes from a website describing the [|American International Toy Fair] from 2004.
 * Competing Products**
 * What's out there that covers the same content as this game? How is your game similar to others? How is it different and better? (You can check the** [|**Board Game Geek**] **search engine and the** [|**Educational Learning Games catalog**] **for school-oriented titles.**

“Pechnidi announces the creation of We the People, the United States Constitution Board Game. For over 200 years, the U.S. Constitution has been one of the most celebrated documents in the world. We The People offers a learning experience into the insight of the nation's forefathers and the U.S. Constitution that is both fun and informative. The object of the game is for each player to go through different scenarios to experience for themselves the benefits of the U.S. Constitution.” Besides this relatively generic description, there is no other. The [|company’s website] offers no description of the game and a very small picture of the game board. **Object of the Game**
 * What's the game goal? What's the end state that players are striving for (e.g., to be the first to reach the Finish square, or to be the first to reach 100 points.)**

The object of the game is to be the player/team to get the most points by answering the most questions correctly about the Constitutional Convention. Both players/teams advance by rolling a standard six sided dice and answering questions about key people, issues, and compromises about the Constitutional Convention. Special emphasis will be given to the compromises reached at the Convention. If a player lands on a dilemma square and can describe the compromise that solved the issue correctly they get extra points.

**Content Analysis**

3/5 Compromise., various delegates (Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Sherman, Patterson, etc.) Slave Trade || Trivia cards, Dilemma Card, Compromise Card || Small States , Federalist, Anti-Federalist || Given during answers to questions ||
 * Content Type || Content Elements || Game Elements ||
 * Facts || Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, Great Compromise,
 * Concepts || Federalism, Compromise, Executive Power, || Trivia cards, Dilemma Card, Compromise Card ||
 * Principles || Compromise, Dilemma, Debate <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> || <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Dilemma Card. Answer to Dilemma Card  <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Procedures || <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Rules || <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Rules of game ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Processes || <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Electoral College, compromise || ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Probabilities || <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Debate, Dilemma, Compromise <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> || <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Dilemma Card. Answer to Dilemma Card  <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Context || || ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Vantage Points || <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> Northern States, Southern States, Large States,

List each of the physical objects one would find in the box. For example, the board, each type of card, each type of prize or token, etc.) After listing the materials, describe each in as much detail as needed. Include illustrations of the board and each type of card.**
 * Game Materials


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Board game – The board game is a modified calendar representing the four months of the Constitutional Convention. The faded image in the background of the board is the Howard Christy painting, “A <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United”, created in April 1940. The board game has an area for the different types of cards: trivia, dilemma, and compromise. Some of the squares have special designations on them that match the dilemma or compromise cards. If a dilemma card is answered correctly the team can advance ahead using the arrows that are also on the game board.




 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Trivia card - A player gets a trivia card and if they answer correctly they receive 1 point. If they answer incorrectly the other team gets a chance to answer. The team that answers correctly will place a wink on that square.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Dilemma card – A player gets a dilemma card (slavery, representation, etc) and if they can name a compromise that fixed the problem then they receive 5 points. The team that answers correctly will place a glass gem on that square.


 * Compromise card – A player gets a compromise card (slavery, representation, etc) and if they can name the two sides that were fighting and why then they receive 5 points. The team that answers correctly will place a glass gem on that square.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Large Bowling Pin Pawn – The pawn is used by both teams to determine where the teams are on the game board. Each team will alternate who rolls the dice to move this pawn. When a team answers a question correctly, they win that day so there is no need for a separate place keeper for each team.


 * Winks – Each team will have their own color wink which will be placed on the square if they successfully answer a question. One wink is equivalent to one point. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.




 * Glass gems - Each team will have their own color glass gem that match the color of their wink which will be placed on the square if they successfully answer a dilemma or compromise question. One glass gem is equivalent to one point. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.



How long would the game take to set up? How long to play? Would one carry a game over several play periods?** <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal;"> The game should take no more than 10 minutes to set up and for players to read the rules to understand the goal of the game. Players would play the game once and should last 45 to 60 minutes. The game could be replayed but because of the limited numbers of dilemma and compromise cards some amount of boredom may appear due to repeated cards.
 * Time Required

**The Rules List the rules as you would provide them to the players. Use a numbered list and keep the rules short, simple, and unambiguous. If there are multiple forms of the game for different objectives or different levels of challenge, separate the rules accordingly rather than merging them into one set.**

1. Each team will alternate rolling the dice to move the large pawn. Once on a day square, a question will be read. The person reading the question does not get to help their team that round.

2. Each team will alternate reading the other team a question. If a team gets the question correct, they will place their colored wink on that date signifying they won that question. If the answer is incorrect, the other team gets a chance to answer the question. Each correct question is worth 1 point. If neither team answers the question correctly, the correct team should roll and continue playing.

3. You must stop at each Dilemma or Compromise square, even if you would move past that point based on the roll of the dice.

4. Dilemma and Compromise squares are worth 5 points due the complicated nature of the answer. A team answering this question correctly should mark that day with their color glass gem. If the answer is incorrect, the other team gets a chance to answer the question. If neither team answers the question correctly, the correct team should roll and continue playing. Dilemma and compromise squares/questions are designated using the icons below:

Dilemma

Compromise

<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> 5. It is OK for teams to use outside resources, including various websites and their textbook, to help answer questions. No more than five minutes should be allowed for researching answers.

6. Once at the end of the board, the team with the most points wins the game.

Describe how the game engages the learner. How does it make use of curiosity, challenge, control, fantasy, competition, cooperation, etc.? (No one game will do all of these things, so focus on the particular strengths of this particular game.) Make specific reference to the theoretical readings associated with this course.**
 * Motivational Issues

The game is more challenging than other games due to the specific time period covered. The questions are more specific than normal and will require players to use outside resource to quickly find answers. The dilemma and compromise questions are more open ended and therefore more difficult to explain. The use of outside resources will be a novelty to most players since that is usually discouraged in other games. Having the correct level of challenge in the game is important. According to Malone & Lepper’s study, challenge is one of the main ingredients to making any type of learning intrinsically motivating. In addition, the use of an obtainable goal will make the game more appealing to players. The goal in this game is both concrete and achievable to important criteria in any goal according to Schell’s book __The Art of Game Design__. Another important feature of this game is the variance of difficulty in the regular questions versus the dilemma and compromise question. This variance should make the game more appealing to players.

Competition is another strong motivator in this game. The two teams vie against each other in each round of questioning. Being under a time constraint to find the correct answer will make the competition more intense. In addition, the person asking the question will lose the ability to contribute to the team’s answer making the question even more difficult to answer. Malone & Lepper’s article, __Making Learning Fun__, confirms that both competition and the speed of answers ranked high among student preferences of games (see Table 10.2). However, the use of a point system may encourage exogenous competition and may have “subsequent detrimental effects of subsequent intrinsic motivation.” Cooperation will also be an important aspect to this game. The dilemma and compromise questions will require teams to work together to answer the complex nature of these questions. In addition, allowing teams to use outside resources to find answers will help foster cooperation. Teams will have to decide who can find answers quickly in order to meet the five minute deadline imposed by the game rules. The team will be dependent on two players to use resources to find answers. This type of endogenous activity inside the game will encourage intrinsic motivation according to Malone & Lepper. Recognition is also incorporated into the game. When each team answers correctly their color wink is placed on that square. If players answer a higher level dilemma or compromise question, the square is marked with their glass gem. The board will highlight which team is doing better and the team playing better gets almost instant recognition.

Describe the process you went through in putting the game together. What were your first thoughts? How did you enhance your ideas? What ideas did you consider and reject (and why?). How did you gather background information? What did you do to see if there are similar games out there? What did you do to get feedback on the idea? How did you flesh out the game to the point of having a playable prototype? How did you gather feedback from that? What lessons did you learn from this that you'll carry to your next game design project?**
 * Design Process

Going into the project, I knew I wanted to develop some type of game around U.S. History. One area that I taught that was extremely important in Kentucky’s curriculum was the Constitution. However the subject matter can often be boring to students. This class provided a perfect opportunity to attempt a game that would teach certain aspects about the Constitution and make it fun. At first, I considered a standard race game with a game board being a calendar of the Constitutional Convention. Two teams would roll dice and to advance they would have to answer questions correctly. Another idea I considered was having students assume certain roles representative of delegates during game play. One team might have been a delegation of southern states and another northern state. Creating enough trivia cards to match one or two groups became unwieldy so this idea was rejected. Another possibility for the game I considered was an alternate reality game. The idea was to have the game set in a new Constitutional Convention and the students would have to use their knowledge of the old Constitution to create a new one. The problem with this was that many students would not know enough to make the game fun. Students would have spent an inordinate amount of time going through the Constitution instead of playing the game. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal;"> There were many opportunities to place ideas on the discussion board and get feedback. Several people were interested in making a history game but not necessarily around the Constitutional Convention. I met with my instructors with the idea that the objective would be a classic race and the first team who made it to the end of the board won. During that meeting, they suggested changing the objective of the game to something similar to the classic strategic game Go and making it point based. This idea appealed to me since it would keep both teams more engaged during the game increasing competition. It also reinforced the review nature of the game by making both teams listen to answers to see if they were correct so they do not repeat an incorrect answer.

During the initial meeting with the instructors, I already had the game board idea in mind. The board was going to be a simple four week calendar of the month of September 1787. The teams would race from Day 1 to Day 30 answering questions stopping at the higher level dilemma questions along the way. As a bonus for answering a dilemma question correctly they could follow the arrows to jump down to the next week similar to how Candy Land is played. After looking more closely at when major dilemmas took place at the Convention, I quickly realized that September would not be accurate enough for the game’s flow. I made a modified calendar board that included June through September 1787 and had a total of 63 days which is more reflective of how many days delegates were actually working. In the original game design, I had Chance spaces and cards designed to move players forward or backward similar to Monopoly. However with the game objective being changed from a race game to a point game and using one pawn for both teams, there was no need for including Chance cards so they were eliminated. Once the basic mechanics of the game were in place I used Word, Adobe, and GIMP to make a playable prototype of the game. I modified a standard two month calendar template from Word and used the Christy painting as the background for the game board. I used the same painting for the regular trivia cards that would used throughout the game. A piece of clip art that looked like two colonial men fighting was used for the background on the dilemma cards and on the calendar to designate when teams were to draw a dilemma card. I used a business card template from Word to create the trivia and dilemma cards. GIMP was used to build the layers for both the board and cards to make the prototype. The prototype board and cards fit on 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. I printed the board, 10 trivia cards, and 3 dilemma cards to take to a classroom for game testing. The students who tested the game were six AP U.S. History students from a rural high school in Kentucky. After explaining that the game was a prototype, and making sure they did not have any questions concerning the rules, students had about 15 minutes to play the game. The feedback they provided on the Game Evaluation Criteria Cards was very helpful. Overall the students seemed to enjoy the game. Below are the average scores of each category students looked at to evaluate the game and a link to the original criteria sheets filled out by the students and an audio recording of the game test.

Clarity – 6.3/7 Flow – 6.3/7 Balance – 6.6/7 Length – 6.3/7 Integration – 6.3/7 Fun – 6.6/7

Game Test Files - http://670.wikispaces.com/Bosley_Constitution_Board_Game_Game_Test

One of the more important pieces of feedback was that the students wanted more opportunities for dilemma questions. In the prototype, there were only four chances to land on a dilemma square. I decided to add four more dilemma type questions but to reverse the situation. Instead of having students name the compromise that solved a dilemma, I added a compromise square and will have students describe the dilemma. I also added a rule which requires students to stop at a dilemma or compromise square even if what they rolled moves them past that point. With four dilemma squares and four compromise squares on the board and the added rule, students will get the opportunity to answer these high level questions each round. Other feedback from the students was more ambiguous. One student said that being able to use outside resources to answer questions was the weakest point of the game while another said it was the strongest. Another important item brought out during game testing was the quality of questions. One question was worded incorrectly making it seem like a trick question. Game testing will help eliminate mistakes and discrepancies in the game. One of the more important lessons I learned from this project is to try and do more game testing. The feedback from students was very valuable. If more time was available for multiple groups t o complete game testing, the feedback provided would greatly improve the overall quality of the game.

**What did you look at to inform your design of the game?** <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;"> Book1 – Atherton, H.M, Barlow, J.J., Quigley, C.N., Smith, D.E. (1998). __We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution__ (6th ed.) Calabasa, CA: Center for Civic Education. Book 2 - Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). __Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience__ (pp. 71 – 93). New York: HarperCollins.
 * References**
 * Books & Journals** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">

Book3 – Divine, R.A., Breen, T.H., Fredickson, G.M., Williams, R. H. (1991). __America: Past and Present__ (Vol. 1). New York: HarperCollins.

Book4 - Farr, J., Malone, T., Lepper, M. (2001). Making Learning Fun: A Taxonomy of Intrinsic Motivations for Learning. In R.E. Snow (ed.) __Aptitude, Learning, and Instruction__ (pp. 223 – 253). Philadelphia: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Book5 - Keller, J., Suzuki, K. (1988) Use of ARCS Motivation Model in Courseware Desgin. In D. Jonassen, (ed.) __Instructional Designs For Microcomputer Courseware__ (pp. 401 – 434). Philadelphia: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Book6 – Schell, J. (2008). __The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses__. Bulington, MA: Morgan Kaufman Publishers. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">
 * Electronic -**

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